TY - JOUR
T1 - Review: <strong>The Battle for Modernism: <em>Quadrante</em> and the Politicization of Architectural Discourse in Fascist Italy</strong> by David Rifkind
JF - Journal of the Society of Architectural Historians
SP - 601
LP - 602
DO - 10.1525/jsah.2014.73.4.601
VL - 73
IS - 4
AU - ,
Y1 - 2014/12/01
UR - http://jsah.ucpress.edu/content/73/4/601.abstract
N2 - David Rifkind The Battle for Modernism: Quadrante and the Politicization of Architectural Discourse in Fascist Italy Venice: Marsilio Editori, 2013, 304 pp., 12 color and 102 b/w illus. $45 (paper), ISBN 9788831713481David Rifkind’s masterful new book is a welcome addition to Italian fascist studies as well as architectural history. It is refreshing to have an in-depth study of one of the formative institutions of Italian modernism: the journal Quadrante, which transformed the practice of architecture in fascist Italy by helping to establish coherence to the modern architecture movement during this time. As we learn, Quadrante, more than any other journal, was the most devoted to developing a unified theory of “architecture of the state,” specifically rationalism, to promote its fascist political agenda. The journal was the most ideologically committed publication of the interwar period. That this even happened is striking given that the short-lived journal was published for only three years between 1933 and 1936 in thirty-one issues.The most inventive aspects of this solid, well-written, and thoroughly researched book (more than twenty archives were consulted) lies in exploring how the history of architecture is simultaneously a history of mediation and a history of networks. Rifkind’s study emphatically shows us the importance of a journal in mediating or choreographing the reception, understanding, and importance of architecture. While simultaneously a study of media, this book is most certainly a study of architecture (with a capital “A”): …
ER -